Pyroclastic flows (PDC's) of Phases 1 and 2 were generated by "magmatic fragmentation" and had "small dispersal areas" mainly on the slopes of Vesuvius.

The deposit thickness of ash and other eruptive material ranges from 15m close to the vent to 50 cm around Avellino, and creating a subaquaeous debris-flow in the bay of Naples.

[4] The date of the Avellino eruption remains to be determined with a precision greater than about 500 years within the framework of the Early/Middle Bronze Age.

Since a real and very precise calendar date of the eruption must have existed, variation in estimations can only be the result of limitations to the carbon-dating method, which, given a plenitude of reliably emplaced samples, can only produce a date within a window of roughly 500 years in a maximum elapsed time of roughly 4000 years or 1⁄8 (12.5%).

[5] A study published in 1990 by Vogel and others suggested that the Avellino eruption partly caused the climatic disturbances of the 1620s BC, dates verified by tree-ring series and ice-core layers.

The remarkably well-preserved remains of one were discovered in May 2001 at Croce del Papa near Nola by French and Italian archaeologists, with huts, pots, livestock and even the footprints of animals and people, as well as skeletons.